


A Restless and Unscrupulous Passion

by Emiline



Category: Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, F/F, Manipulative Relationship, Vampires, Yuletide, Yuletide 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:46:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5452235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emiline/pseuds/Emiline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I sought to use her adoration for me, as she used mine for her, to gain that knowledge I so desperately sought.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Restless and Unscrupulous Passion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bofoddity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bofoddity/gifts).



You who live in towns cannot understand how those of us who live in such isolation as we do in hunger for tales of the world outside of our experience. At nineteen, as I then was when Carmilla came to us, I knew our own schloss and forest as well as anyone, and though it still charmed me I treasured such bits of knowledge of the world beyond as I could come by. How each experience, each story treasured and savored and imagined over and over again, as though it were a new plaything. I was content enough to stay in my world, but I did fervently wish to expand it by borrowed experience. 

It frustrated me more than I can say that Carmilla was so unwilling to share with me those things that might have added color and interest my life. That I did not respect her desire to not discuss her family and background was indeed ill-mannered of me, but my curiosity was not unnaturally wakened by the secrecy, and I had all that fervor and passion of youth. Moreover, I was attracted to and deeply interested by her, which added yet more urgency to my inquisitiveness. Her reticence hurt me, for I could not understand why she persisted in it when she claimed me a close and intimate friend. 

I have told you that once or twice, I attacked Carmilla more directly on those subjects to which I have already spoken, though I was summarily unsuccessful. Now I tell you that I was unsuccessful even though I used those arts that she herself had taught me, that had worked so well upon my own person. I sought to use her adoration for me, as she used mine for her, to gain that knowledge I so desperately sought, and yet it came to nothing. As I look back on my behavior from this span of time, it is astonishing to me that I should have acted in such a manner, and yet the memory is clear. 

One day we were in the sitting room, I sitting on the chaise lounge, and she reclining, her head in my lap. I was running my hands idly through her soft, brown hair. The day was warm, and the heat had made us more idle than usual. 

“Will you not trust me?” I asked softly, my left hand sliding down to caress her cheek. “I swear to you that anything you tell me shall never pass my lips. You yourself have said that we should be near friends, that we are indeed destined to be so, but you share so little of yourself with me! You take and take and take” I punctuated this speech with kisses to each temple and her forehead “and give me so little in return. I know not your family, nor where you come from, nor hardly any particulars of your life, and I have told you so much of mine.” 

I leaned down somewhat awkwardly to kiss her mouth, and she shifted her body to improve our fit. 

“I am fascinated by you,” I whispered against her lips. 

“My darling, my darling,” she grasped my right hand and pressed soft kisses to the palm, and the wrist, and I shivered, though the room was warm. “It pains me more than I can express to keep silent from you – and yet I must – I must. It is vital! I dare not speak to you now – the consequences could be disastrous.” 

I withdrew the one hand from her grasp and removed the other from her cheek. 

“Is there no small part of your memories that you can safely share with me?” I enquired a little coldly. 

She reached for my hand again, but I crossed my arms. 

She laughed. “My poor dear!” She raised herself with effort and turned to face me, a look of sweet compassion and desire on her visage. “But I have done so, darling,” she slid an arm around me, and though I stiffened, I did not push her away. 

“Have I not told you of some small adventures of childhood, of Nurse, and the tricks we used to play on her? Have I not spoken sometimes of my homeland?” 

“Yes, but in terms so vague and contradictory that I scarcely know more of you than I did had you told me nothing. I want to know you – your likes, your tastes, your interests. It is not fair,” I continued a little petulantly. “I have given so freely to you. Is not a friendship a partnership?” 

“But you already know those most important things about me,” she insisted, laying her head on my shoulder. “Do not pull away from me, Laura dear,” she continued, tightening her grip on my waist. For one who so often appeared languid in manner her strength was formidable. 

Though I in my anger wished to punish her by removing myself from her embrace, the fire in my head was curiously disconnected from my limbs, which were limp and lethargic. 

“I have already told you my likes, my tastes, my interests,” she insisted breathily. “All are one and the same – you.” 

I turned my head to look at her, and she raised her head obligingly. How charming, how surpassingly lovely she looked in that moment, and yet her ardor frightened me a little. 

“Surely,” my mouth was dry, “you have others.” 

“None,” she insisted, pressing still closer, and I allowed her to kiss me. “Can you doubt me?,” she asked, pushing me back gently against the cushions. 

“What are you doing?” I asked, as she trailed kisses down my neck, to my collarbone, to the neckline of my gown. 

“As you do not trust my words, I must show you by my actions. You will come to realize your love for me soon enough, you shall be consumed by it, as I consume you, and in eternity none shall break us asunder.” 

Terror gripped me. 

“You are not well, I think,” my voice was weaker than I wished. “You have the look of a fever about you; you’re rather flushed.” 

“Am I?” 

My body did not seem to be obeying me, and in attempting to free myself from her embraces I half-fell on the floor. 

“You must be,” I said more firmly, as a cloud passed away from me and I regained some of my strength. “This is one of your spells such as you sometimes have. You will be better presently,” I continued with more conviction than I felt. 

I heard footsteps in the hall – Madame Perrodon’s – I know her tread as well as my own or any in this household. I managed to scramble to my feet and seat myself in a chair opposite the chaise lounge. 

Carmilla gave me a strange smile, and raised one hand to her hair. 

I reached to my own and realized it was in much disarray. I had no hand mirror, and so tidied up as best I could. That my success was limited became evident a few moments later when Madame Perrodon, who had bustled briskly in stopped abruptly and chided me for managing to so disorder my person. Her entrance broke through and dispelled whatever strangeness still lingered in the room, and for a time at least, nearly everything returned to the way that it was before. 

I suspected that some change had come over me, for I still felt most peculiar. And indeed I was right, though it was not till years later that I fully understood the import of those events. 

**Author's Note:**

> There are two lines from the novel that had a great deal of influence on this fanfic. They are:
> 
> "But curiosity is a restless and unscrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another." (Section IV -- Her Habits-A Saunter)
> 
> "...I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling." (also Section IV -- Her Habits-A Saunter)


End file.
